A Brief Essay on Empathy

Cal Freeman

Remember when Piglet bledfrom the throat in the moonlightand collapsedin the stubble and chaff?

Is the harvest here,and is the moon on schedule?

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I’ll attempt to tell the interminable story from the beginning.

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7AM, diamondbacks sunning themselveson chimney rocks, spiny lizards

scattered in the yellow poppies,orange flare of African daisies,

sunlight behind saguaros,cruciform shadows in sand,

the filmed tongue mute.

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Take the pomace flyand accompanying issues of divergence

and divorce, the problems of sub-speciationgiven niche populations

and ephemeral geographical boundaries.

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In the 1987 film Project Xthe chimpanzees’ vocalizations were edited out

in favor of actors’. The director, Jonathan Kaplan,thought this would make them more sympathetic.

As time passes the film will begin to strike usas quainter or more prescient,

or it will be almost entirely forgotten.

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What takes place in even a poorly-wrought story is the manipulation of time to favorour sense of self-importance.

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Jimmy Garrett (Matthew Broderick) on thelimitations of chimpanzee-piloted flightsthrough simulated radioactive fields:When you put a chimp in the cockpitthey’ll continue flying through the fallout;put a human pilot in the same situationand they’ll realize they’re dyingand the mission will no longer seem important.